Repealing The Second Amendment Doesn't Repeal It

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
– Ninth Amendment

Many people ask me, “What will we do if ‘they’ ban guns?” First of all, who are “they?” If “they” are the federal government, they haven’t the right or authority. To legislate a gun ban is to overturn the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment can’t be overturned except by Amendment to the Constitution. Such an Amendment would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the States. This means the States themselves, not House Representatives and Senators. So, can anyone imagine three-fourths of the States overturning the Second Amendment? I didn’t think so.

But say the Second Amendment is somehow repealed by Constitutional Amendment. The Ninth Amendment seems to indicate that the right to bear arms still exists. I say “seems to indicate” because, naturally, opponents of individual rights say “no.” Personal liberty is too much for statists and fascists to bear. Nevertheless, reading the English literally, “rights” are not limited. Those “certain rights” which are enumerated in the Constitution are not all of them. There are, in fact, other rights not enumerated in the Constitution. It is up to the people to decide what those rights are. For how can they be retained by the people if the people do not know what they are?

This begs the question, how do the people know what rights they have? The Bill of Rights is a good starting point. However, it is not, according to the Constitution, all of our rights. We have other rights. Do we have the right to food? No, because to have a “right to food” is to enslave someone else to produce that food. Do we have a right to guns? No, because to have right to a gun is to enslave someone else to produce a gun. However, we have the right to bear arms, that is, to own a gun. It’s a right because no one is enslaved by this right.

Now, if we have such a right, how can it be taken away? One might say, the repeal of the Second Amendment removes that right. Not so! For if a certain right is not enumerated in the Constitution, the people still retain the right. The only question is, how can the people retain a right which has been forbidden? This is easy to answer. The Constitution was written to delineate the duties of government. The Bill of Rights limits that government duty from stepping on individual liberty. The Ninth Amendment is a statement towards this limitation. In other words, if the federal government says the people have no right, they still do. If the federal government takes away the right of the people, it is illegitimate government. The Ninth Amendment explicitly tells us so.

Some might argue that the Ninth Amendment only regards unspoken rights, not bans. That is, the Ninth Amendment only protects what is not forbidden. Again, not so! The 9th Amendment makes clear that the people have the right to make their own rights! If this seems a bit too cavalier, consider the alternative. Shall we say that the government makes all the rules? The Ninth Amendment may be too democratic, but the alternative is tyranny.

“But,” one might argue, “what if the people as a whole decide to ban guns?” The answer to this is simple: how will such a ban be enforced?
It will take a gun to ban a gun. This means superior power, which invokes a government tyranny. The people cannot use the government against the people where it concerns rights. We cannot use the government to enslave others to produce food or guns. Neither can we use the government to remove the right of self-defense. In fact, the most urgent form of self-defense is against such a tyrannical government. The Bill of Rights is the defender of such self-defense.

Therefore, even if the Second Amendment were repealed, the right to bear arms exists. No ban removes this right. No absence of the right removes this right. No repeal removes this right.